PROFESSOR BLACKTE ON SCOTTISH NATIONALITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 122, 7 April 1862, Page 3

PROFESSOR BLACKTE ON SCOTTISH NATIONALITY.

(From the Scotsman.') On Friday evening Professor Blackie delivered a lecture on " Scottish Rationality ami Scottish Character, with strictures on Mr. Buckle," in tlie Glasgow Atlieiueum. ((?^l'he "ov. Dr. Piitcrsoii, who was colled to chair, introduced Professor Blackie io the audience. Professor P.l.xkie, .who was warmly received, said it gave him very great pleasure to be allowed to speak on liie subject of Scottish nationality, in what he held to be the capital of Scotland, so far at least, as Scottisli life and national feeling were concerned. (Loud cheers.) No doubt the Edinburgh people were a little conceited of themselves— (laughter)—and he had a great respect for them; but they held that they were the brain of Scotland. Well, let it be so; he did not enquire whether tliat were the case or not. If the brain were the centre of cogitation, the heart was the centre of life—(loud cheers) — and Glasgow be held to be the heart. He had always felt that there was a warmth of Scottish feeling in Glasgow, a real sympathy for Scottish nationality, of which the Edinburgh prigs were rather ashamed. (Loud laughter.) He said in Glasgow, because he had always said it honestly in Edinburgh, and he knew the best men in Edinburgh were something of the same opinion. (Hear, hear.) He then quoted the following passage from John Stuart Mill's work ou " Liberty;" which he took as his text:—"Europe is in my judgment just now advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike." The learned Professor went on to say, that he did not see the practical utility of making all men alike, aud . spoke strongly against the Southern tendency to ignore Scottish nationality. The Cockneys were not capable, with only one Cockney idea in their head, of travelling out of the small circle of that idea. It was for the advantage of Englishmen themselves that they should find Scotchmen when they came to Scotland, as they found Germans when they went to Germany, and not find John Bulls. (Laughter and applause.) It would have been impossible to have created all men alike, and if it had been possible it would have been stupid. (Laughter nnd applause.) Variety was one of the fundamental principles on wliich the world was constituted. He did not know what the young gentlemen in Glasgow were, but he knew that there were many of the young gentlemen in Edinburgh who were Angliiied puppies, who grew up without ever hearing a word of llobert Burns in the schools, and who grew up away from all nationality, except what they had heard in the Scottish Church. He gloried in seeing the young men of Scotland growing up as Scotchmen. He then proceeded to adduce proof of the historical fact that we were a nation, distinct and well marked. He touched briefly upon the Scottish race, the Scottish language, the marked geographical outlines of the country, the Scottish religion and the Scottish Church, the peculiar customs, laws, and institutions of the Scottish people, as well as its common histor}' and common traditions, common struggles, common victories, and common triumphs. When he travelled on the Continent he was sometimes asked, "You are an Englishman, of course ?" "No, lam a Scotchman," he answered. He never admitted that he was an Englishman. (Laughter.) On the Continent the Englishmen had such a bad character— (laughter)—partly from their pride, formality, and conceit—partly from their gross ignorance and stupidity. (Laughter.) They were so much hated there, that he always found himself on the right hand of the host when he said he was a couutryman of Walter Scott and Burns. He next reviewed the peculiarities of the Scottish character, asking what sort of animal the Scotchman really was? He had found out eight points in which tlie peculiarity of the animal Seotus consisted: — Ist, The Scot was essentially a working animal ; 2nd, the Scot was an enterprising and adventurous animal; 3rd, The Scot was a thinking and philosophical animal; 4th, The Scot wi'.s a practical and utilitarian animal— he knew what was before his nose, and he knew where he was going to strike (laughter); sth, The Scot was a sure and cautious animal (laughter); 6th, The Soot was an earnest, serious, devout, aud religious animal (laughter) ; 7th, The Scot was a fervid, impassioned, and poetical animal (laughter)— perferviditm ingenium, Scotomm ; and Bth,- As this audience seemed all to prove, the Scot was a humorous, and {unusable and amusing animal (laughter and applause)—he was a jolly animal, not at all the grim, grave man of iron and wire that Mr Buckle seemed to think. Upon each of these heads the learned Professor dilated at some length. In speaking of the thinkin i and philosophical tendency ofthe Scottish mind, he said that the 7'imc.i had made a remarkable admission that in England the uniVersities produced learning, and in Scotland they produced thinking. Much as he respected learning, the value of it depended on the use made of it, and the use made of it depended upon the power to use it, and the power to use it depended upon the thoughts. As Falstaff said, "Learning was like a heap of gold kept hy a devil," or he might add, sometimes by an ass, and of all the asses he knew, the erudite ass was the most intolerable. (Laughter and applause.) Scotland owed this thinking and philosophic tendency to her univcrjities and her theology. The thinking that did not commence with the forming of a man's own character and the rectification of his position before- Cod was very shallow thinking. If this Calvanistic religious bugbear oi small cockney minds like Mr. Buckle's had nothing move to be said in its favor than that, it must be one of the most valuable of all theologies. Asa school for thinking he would put it against all other schools in the world, and.that should be taken into account hy a writer of the monstrous pretensions of Mr. Buckle. One of the most excelling features ofthe Scotch intellect was the practxul tendency of its pursuits. The great science of political economy, if not of Scotch birth, was at least of Scotch growth and manhood. Even in physical sdc-noe, Scotland has produced the greatest men, and made the most remarkable discoveries. In chemistry, they had a Black, who had received his due laudation from Mr. Buckle; iv the physical science, they had a Hunter, who, Mr. Buckle admitted, was the greatest anatomical thinker of modern times ; and there was tlie whole medical school of Edinburgh, which was essentially a practical school. With these facts staring him in the face, Mr. Buckle had confounded the Scottish people with the speculative and transcendental people of the Continent, the Germans, who were a people distinguished by their deductive philosophy, if Scottish writers had written their books upon a deductive method, they had arrived at a knowledge of the principles by long processes of observation. The method of statement was one thing, but Mr. Buckie had overlooked the way in whicli Scottish writers had arrived at their great principles. This merely proved two things : that Mr. Buckle's mind was an extremely shallow and superficial mind—(hear) —and it proved to him (Professor Blackie) that Air. Buckle was a pedant, and a man who dealt with books ami not with living men. In fact, continued the Professor, I think the man has been vastly overrated ; if I had riot got him to review I would have treated him n a very different manner. (Laughter and applause.) He then touched upon the sphere of induction, by Mr. Buckle understood what one could lay his fingers on. Now, if they wanted to collect shells, or, like the geologists, to collect antediluvian crabs, they must lay their fingers upon them; but

it they wanted to know something* of their own soul, they could not put their finger upon their soul. Mr. Buckle that they were to know their own soul also by induction ; there was his great error. Philosophy, poetry, and religion, were not known by being gathered from without; the}' were kuownVv' bursting out like living evidences from within, and the cognitive faculty was incapable of knowing what philosophy, and poeiry, and religion meant. Mr. Buckle admitted all this, but he was tlie most, iiingiuul and self-contradictory man that evil* io (.Professor Blackie) h;id to do with, ile would illustrate 'this difference between the two facilities. Tne poet-Goethe, who was at the same time a most exact man of science, had given-the impulse to the idea of type which had succeeded iv revolutionising the sciences of botany and osteology, and establishing the science of morphology, for in his mind the idea arose that nothing existed independent of another thing, but that one part corresponded to another, aud that the various parts of the plan were ouiy developments of the original germ, and that the original type might be traced through a great number of modifications. A"o man would acknowledge the law; and now, at the present day, it was the governing and acting principle in these physical sciences. The learned Professor concluded his lecture by some remarks on Scottish theology. The centre of Scottish nationality, he said, lay in Scottish Presbytcrianism. lie resumed his seat amid loud ap-

plause. Air. Wm. Burns moved a vote of thanks to Professor Blackie for bis lecture, whicli was warmly responded to.